PSA: Beware of Flight Information change feature
Dec 3, 2018, 7:35 pm
#1
Original Poster
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: ORD
Programs: UA Gold, MR Gold, Hilton Gold, Hertz PC
Posts: 209
PSA: Beware of Flight Information change feature
After taking a FlyerTalk sabbatical of few years, I had to come back here to share the experience I had today, as a warning to fellow travelers.
Short version: if you update flight information on existing reservation, your reservation may (will) be repriced - do not update the flight information
Long version: I made a reservation for a long weekend at DEN a couple of weeks ago, for a midsize for a grand total of $90 (really good rate IMHO). I have originally been booked to fly in on Southwest, but have decided to change the inbound flight to AA (had to do mostly with flying in from ORD vs MDW and my schedule for that day).
After I have booked my AA flight (SWA reservation is still there, just in case), I went to hertz.com to update the arriving flight info. So, to be very clear, just clicking the Edit button next to flight into, not modifying edit itinerary (so no changes in car, pickup location or date/time). I entered my new flight number, clicked "OK" and next thing I see is new confirmation page. New grand total - $328.
What I think happened:
- to "improve" customer experience, pickup time has automatically been changed to exact flight arrival time (this btw was not the case with original reservation, that is, pickup time was just whatever I entered in terms of time, not my flight arrival time even though I provided that as well)
- as a result of that, and IMHO, a bug in the website (or at least a "feature") - re-price was triggered (even though the difference between my original pickup time and new was about 1.5 hours)
- note, there was no prompt warning about the price change, or asking me to confirm or anything like that - it simply modified the reservation with new price
To add insult to injury, calling customer service so far yielded very little result. They acknowledge what happened, and at the same time offer very little in terms of rectifying the situation (so far I have, "print out original reservation, Denver should be able to honor and we put note in the system, and if that fails, contact loyalty to issue some points" - but if that fails, that means I am out full price in $$$ and probably good 30+ minutes of extra time at the counter at 10pm in DEN with drive up the mountain ahead of me)
My rant aside, my guess is that this behavior will be "fixed" soon, or at least I hope. I asked them to notify eCom teams however they can. But in the meantime, be vary of this. My suggestion - DO NOT update the flight information (although I realize that I don't know how will I know this was every fixed if I never update it).
Short version: if you update flight information on existing reservation, your reservation may (will) be repriced - do not update the flight information
Long version: I made a reservation for a long weekend at DEN a couple of weeks ago, for a midsize for a grand total of $90 (really good rate IMHO). I have originally been booked to fly in on Southwest, but have decided to change the inbound flight to AA (had to do mostly with flying in from ORD vs MDW and my schedule for that day).
After I have booked my AA flight (SWA reservation is still there, just in case), I went to hertz.com to update the arriving flight info. So, to be very clear, just clicking the Edit button next to flight into, not modifying edit itinerary (so no changes in car, pickup location or date/time). I entered my new flight number, clicked "OK" and next thing I see is new confirmation page. New grand total - $328.
What I think happened:
- to "improve" customer experience, pickup time has automatically been changed to exact flight arrival time (this btw was not the case with original reservation, that is, pickup time was just whatever I entered in terms of time, not my flight arrival time even though I provided that as well)
- as a result of that, and IMHO, a bug in the website (or at least a "feature") - re-price was triggered (even though the difference between my original pickup time and new was about 1.5 hours)
- note, there was no prompt warning about the price change, or asking me to confirm or anything like that - it simply modified the reservation with new price
To add insult to injury, calling customer service so far yielded very little result. They acknowledge what happened, and at the same time offer very little in terms of rectifying the situation (so far I have, "print out original reservation, Denver should be able to honor and we put note in the system, and if that fails, contact loyalty to issue some points" - but if that fails, that means I am out full price in $$$ and probably good 30+ minutes of extra time at the counter at 10pm in DEN with drive up the mountain ahead of me)
My rant aside, my guess is that this behavior will be "fixed" soon, or at least I hope. I asked them to notify eCom teams however they can. But in the meantime, be vary of this. My suggestion - DO NOT update the flight information (although I realize that I don't know how will I know this was every fixed if I never update it).
